


Holy Ground

by drosophilase



Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-25
Updated: 2013-05-25
Packaged: 2017-12-12 23:28:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/817301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drosophilase/pseuds/drosophilase
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on the song by Taylor Swift— Blaine visits Dalton for the winter dance, but the memories are impossible to outrun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Holy Ground

> _[I was reminiscing just the other day](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpIAi-O2VcU) _
> 
> _While having coffee all alone_
> 
> _And Lord, it took me away_
> 
> _Back to a first glance feeling on New York time_
> 
> _Back when you fit my poems like a perfect rhyme_

_\--_

Just the drive over had felt like a slow drowning, like a vice around Blaine’s ribs was notched tighter and tighter until the need to breathe left him dizzy.  It was familiar— terribly, achingly so— the way the highway gave way to sleepy small-town streets, to winding country roads, to a long gravel drive.  The staggering brick building still took his breath away, tall and covered in ivy, flanked by an imposing wrought iron black fence studded with twisted  _D_ ’s, but for different reasons now. 

The whole experience is surreal, a punch in the gut and a sharp knife twisting his ribs when the fleeting glances of landscape match up to the background of happy memories.  There’s bits of laughter in the highway blur of green, music in the crunch of gravel under tires, light that almost blinds him in the heavy dark wood double doors.

The whole place is different now, somehow.  Blaine’s seen Dalton at night before, more than once, but it had never seemed so… strange.  The halls had always been familiar, a safe haven.  Now one glance at the stained glass makes him want to run far, far away.

His phone buzzes on the seat next to him.  He peels one hand from its death grip on the steering wheel long enough to read it, but he knows what it will say.

Sebastian  
 _Are you coming or not?  Everyone’s really excited to see you and the music’s actually not that lame.  For Ohio, anyway._

Blaine scoffs a little, shooting back  _just got here be in soon._  and slips the phone into his jacket’s inner pocket.  He doesn’t move for a minute, watching the guys opening doors for their dates, straightening ties that aren’t striped and smoothing down blazers that aren’t piped in red.  Dalton’s Winter Formal wasn’t a new tradition, but it was one Blaine himself had never participated in.

_Maybe if I wasn’t so completely idiotic, we could have—_

He opens the door quickly, letting the bitter cold wind take the thought away as painfully as it had come.  The threat of snow is tangible in the air.  Sliding out to the gravel, dust already coating his meticulously shined shoes in that old tedious way, Blaine follows the path to the golden warmth of indoors.

Dalton is just as opulent as he remembers, maybe even more so now when it’s decorated for the special event.  Every surface is polished to a gleam, poinsettias perched on every available ledge and Christmas trees in every room.  He mindlessly trails behind the barely-there swish of dresses and click of dress shoes, the dull pound of a far-away bassline up ahead.

The fastest path to the grand ballroom and the one decorated in twinkle lights and fake snow is the freshman wing at the back of the school, an area Blaine never spent any time in.  It’s not vivid memories that strike him, then, but instead a feeling of  _emptiness_.  Like Dalton is still shiny and grandiose but somehow lost its heart, its allure as a haven that drew Blaine so tightly to it.

He’s still puzzling over it as the pulse of music and laughter and chatter from the grand ballroom reaches him, the double doors thrown open and edged with more tiny white lights the make the fake snow glitter.  Blaine adjusts his cuffs, straightens his collar and tries to find the smile that used to fall so easily in those halls.

It’s when he’s standing awkwardly just inside the ballroom letting his eyes adjust that the truth hits him square on the head.

It’s because Dalton’s not his safe haven anymore.

“Blaine!  Hey Blaine!”

“Look guys it’s Blaine!”

“ _Blaine!_ ”

Blaine closes his eyes against the waves of crushing sadness that threaten to overtake him, the thoughts of strong arms and blue eyes and sure smile that were his rock,  _are_  his rock, will always be—

He staggers back with the sudden force of a body hitting his own, arms wrapping tight around his shoulders.  The tears are knocked out of him, right along with his breath, and he blinks open to a face full of blonde hair.  Jeff.

“Blaine!  Man, we’re so glad to have you back, buddy.”

Blaine straightens up, wiping his eyes quickly and letting them think he’s just overwhelmed to be back, just happy to see them.  And he  _is_  sort of happy surrounded by so many smiles, exchanging hugs and thumps on the back with Jeff, then Nick and Trent and Trevor, shaking hands and promptly forgetting the names of unfamiliar faces that seem just as excited as the ones he does recognize.

Last is Sebastian, whose smile is much too knowing for Blaine’s comfort.  This tentative friendship between them isn’t always simple, and it sometimes still surprises Blaine that they can get along.  But at times like this, it’s such a relief to know that someone, anyone can understand.

Blaine gets caught up in reconnecting, getting tossed back and forth from one group to another, shaking hands and nodding and talking as little as possible.  No one seems to notice that he’s insanely more reserved than before, the whole rockstar frontman facade stripped away.  Instead they talk around him, content to weave stories of “the golden days” with just his intermittent nods.  He winces at the appropriate parts, smiles as realistically as he can muster when it’s called for.

The only time anyone notices is when it’s just Nick, shoulders pressed together when Blaine goes for more punch.  He misses his cue to laugh and suddenly Nick’s brow is knit together, hand on Blaine’s right shoulder.  He closes his eyes to stop the build up of tears.

“Blaine… how are you doing?  Truly?”

“I’m fi—” the word gets halfway out of his mouth before he meets Nick’s eyes and sees the deep honest care there.  The false word sticks in his throat.

“It’s hard, Nick.  It’s really,” he pauses to take a shaky breath, “really hard.”

He’s crushed to Nick’s chest then, his empty punch cup jabbing him.  The tears are fresh again, and through blurry eyes, Blaine can see they’ve attracted quite a few curious stares.

Pulling back slowly, Blaine tries to discreetly wipe his face but there’s nothing discreet about it anymore, the racking sobs bubbling up and making him tremble.  Nick’s face is full of understanding and  _pity_ , and god, it’s almost worse than no one noticing.

“Thanks Nick, honestly,” he gets out thickly, shoving the punch cup into his hands.  “I’m just gonna…” he jabs a thumb over his shoulder and Nick nods.  He turns quickly, beelining for the lobby.

In a stroke of the luck he hasn’t had for months now, just as he starts to leave the latest Top 40 hit comes over the loudspeakers, and everyone runs to dance.  He makes a largely unnoticed exit, skirting the dancefloor and slipping out the open doors.

He looks around, getting his bearings.  To the left is the brightly lit entrance path that will take him back to his car.  It’s darker to the right, but he can see the lit lamps of the corridors and common rooms that will lead him right back to…

“Going somewhere?”

Blaine nearly jumps out of his skin, yelping a little and throwing his fists up in a boxing stance.

“Calm yourself, Blaine, I’m not the big bad wolf.”  Sebastian steps out from the shadows next to the doors, arms crossed and his damn face just so  _knowing_.  Blaine can’t decide if it makes him mad or just feel defeated.

“Hey, Sebastian.  Actually, I was just leaving.”

“Yeah, sure you were,” Sebastian replies, and if it wasn’t for the complete lack of teasing in his voice, Blaine would have been able to walk away.  If Sebastian had been rude or mocking or even pitying like Nick, Blaine could have maintained his dignity and strutted out of Dalton, leaving his ghosts where they belonged.

It’s the empathy, the actual understanding that breaks him, makes Blaine’s defiant scowl melt, makes him glance toward the hallway to the right.

“It’s okay not to be okay, Blaine.  When you lose the person who is your world, it’s going to knock you on your ass.  Take your time, work through it.”

Blaine eyes him suspiciously, not ungrateful for the advice but unsure how to receive it from Sebastian, of all people.

He shrugs, like he knows exactly what Blaine’s thinking.  “I wasn’t always so bitter, you know.  I’m sure I had stars in my eyes once, too.  Don’t give up, Blaine.  Don’t end up like me.  You deserve better than that.”

Blaine doesn’t know what to say, staring at Sebastian like he’s seeing him for the first time.  And he is, in a way: the open, earnest expression on his face is one Blaine never imagined he’d see. 

“Thank you,” he says finally, putting every bit of emotion he can behind it.  Sebastian nods, a hint of smile finally playing around his lips.

“Anytime.  Now go ahead, go see.”

Blaine goes, brushing his hand across Sebastian’s shoulder in silent gratefulness.

Soon, the noises of the winter formal are far behind him, with nothing but the muffled tap of his dress shoes echoing off the wood floors and tall, vaulted ceilings.  He’s walked these halls a hundred times before, but that same itch of unfamiliarity remains.  There’s dozens of conversations he had right outside the history wing, plenty of times he met Wes and David to walk to lunch together by that bust of old Winthrop Q. Dalton himself; memories he can see clearly in his mind’s eye but that somehow ring hollow, flat, lifeless.

The first truly painful room is the Senior Commons.  It’s changed some, with a new pool table and a different couch, but Blaine can still go through the blocking of  _Teenage Dream_.  After a second to just breathe and adjust, he steps over and takes his place, holding his left wrist in his right hand.  It’s easy to imagine the crowds of excited Dalton boys, the vibrating palpable energy of the Warblers behind him pumped to perform, and by the double doors—

 _Oh._   There’s the light he was missing.

Kurt, sweet Kurt, so lost at his own school and a completely inept spy at this one, smiling like he had almost forgotten how.  Blaine couldn’t resist that smile, saying anything and everything to get it to stay. 

He shakes his head a little, moving on, trying to shake the image of Kurt’s luminous face.  It follows him.

The coffee room.  Kurt, opening up about his tormentors over lattes.  Blaine returning with his best semblance of advice.  The time Thad teased them about being “old marrieds” before they’d even gotten together.  Blaine hadn’t understood then.  Coffee breaks meant to be quick that became long conversations that were always too perfect, too easy.  Just…  _right._   It doesn’t feel right any more.  He moves on.

Junior commons is too warm, the embers still glowing in the fireplace.  The poinsettias aren’t as red as he remembers.  He tries out the piano; it’s not as rich, either.  He tries a little spin, but stumbles.  _“But baby, it’s cold outside…”_  he tries.  The acoustics suck, too.

The Warblers practice room is especially tainted.  He can’t even recall a time before Kurt.  Kurt auditioning for a solo.  Kurt singing Blackbird.  Telling everyone he wanted to sing a duet with Kurt and his surprised, pleased little smirk that Blaine wanted to kiss right off his face.

Oh god, the study room where he  _did_  kiss Kurt, deep and sure the first time, and the second, and every time after.  Lazy afternoons of holding hands across the table and giving kisses as rewards for a correctly answered flashcard.  Declarations of things that they couldn’t possibly know but somehow did, bone-deep honest and real.  He touches the chair Kurt always sat in, almost sits in his own.  It hurts too much.

The northern staircase is the worst.  The skylight is dark now, the stairwell lit with artificial lamplight, but Blaine can see it white in the mid-afternoon sunshine clear as anything.  He walks up the stairs slowly, trailing his hand along the rail like it might hold a tiny essence of what was. 

When he reaches the top he can see it all below him, boys in blue and red hurrying past, all headed to the senior wing with excitement in their step.  Late, he hurries down the stairs, pulling out his pocket watch to count the seconds he has until Wes will officially sign his death certificate.  He’s almost to the bottom, trying to find an opening in the stream of people when—

_Excuse me._

Blaine whirls around, staring hard into the darkness.  He could have  _sworn_ , it was just so clear…

No one’s there.


End file.
